Are el-cheap-o power supplies OK?

My PSU tanked and I've only ever bought exact replacements. But I keep paying $60 for Bestec units that are only going 3 months for me. I'm wondering if I can buy a cheaper one instead. Is there any harm is the cheap < $20 power supplies? They won't hurt my system will they?

My PSU tanked and I've only ever bought exact replacements. But I keep paying $60 for Bestec units that are only going 3 months for me. I'm wondering if I can buy a cheaper one instead. Is there any harm is the cheap < $20 power supplies? They won't hurt my system will they?

Agreed with everyone posting so far. What are the specs of your system - of primary concern is how many videocards and of what type? Post your specs and the forum will recommend a general wattage range that will suit your needs.

My PSU tanked and I've only ever bought exact replacements. But I keep paying $60 for Bestec units that are only going 3 months for me. I'm wondering if I can buy a cheaper one instead. Is there any harm is the cheap < $20 power supplies? They won't hurt my system will they?

It's $13 and oh well if it goes 3 months I'm ok with it. I just can't afford burning $60 power supplies anymore.

Do NOT buy that $13 Logisys PSU. A bad PSU not only can't put out its rated power but can actually do damage to your computer when it's overloaded.

Why don't you check for bargains and buy good stuff at cheap prices. For example, a couple of weeks ago, TigerDirect was offering a 650W OCZ PSU for under $50, or $27 after rebate, and it got very high ratings from HardwareSecrets.com:

Stick with brands like Corsair, Antec, Seasonic, Enermax, and others that are favored by places like HardwareSecrets.com, JonnyGuru.Com, HardOCP.com, Overclockers.com, and XbitLabs.com. Places like FatWallet.com can help you find bargains.

Some companies produce a wide variety of quality and sell the best to companies like Corsair, PC Power & Cooling, and Antec or to large OEMs like Dell and HP. Bestec is known to do that, more than most manufacturers. Also refurbished or pulled OEM PSUs are sometimes kind of cheap, but if you buy any from Dell or HP there may be a choice of more than one brand per model, in which case choose Delta or HiPro.

I've never spent more than $20, after rebate, on a PSU but have never gotten junk, except when a case was included. Actually I've never paid more than $15, but I'd spend $5 to replace garbage brand capacitors with good ones. BTW many otherwise high quality PSUs contain such capacitors.

Everyone will condemn me here but I will state this. If you are low on budget and need a affordable PSU. I would rather spend $40 and get a cheap 800w rated thing than get a 400w rated PSU with a spoiler and spinners so to speak.

Brands are brands but the real reason PSUs fail is because you overload the rails. Cheap PSUs have all the amps in the wrong places but buying high wattage sidesteps that.

The closest to an expensive PSU I've ever had was an OCZ and I've only had one PSU fail on me since I was 13. (20 now)

I would rather spend $40 and get a cheap 800w rated thing than get a 400w rated PSU with a spoiler and spinners so to speak.

I would go the exact opposite. A $40 430W one like a Corsair CX430 V2 likely actually can handle producing 430W and has components engineered as such, whereas a $40 850W PSU is probably the exact same guts inside, only with a different sticker on top... If you missed the Jonnyguru reviews I linked above... well, I would suggest you take a look.

I just picked up and 850 watt Thermaltake modular power supply from Best Buy for $100, that's cheap. Last time I bought a supply I paid over twice that for half the capacity...

Get a good one and forget about it lol

Did you buy a TR2 RX? Because you got ripped off if you did. Best Buy literally put it in your pooper. That is basically a $60 PSU at best, and there are plenty of lower wattage options with better electrical performance for way less than $100. Wattage is only a starting point in PSU shopping...you must look at other aspects of electrical performance like voltage regulation and ripple suppression. You have to look at whether they awful capacitors from China or not.

If you bought the newer Thermaltake SMART SP-850, then that's not as bad. The only other PSUs available in-store at Best Buy I would touch are the Corsair GS Series. That said, everything above still applies. 850W is enough for a heavily OC'd high end CPU and two heavily OC'd high end GPUs. If your PC doesn't fit that description, you don't need that much power.

Everyone will condemn me here but I will state this. If you are low on budget and need a affordable PSU. I would rather spend $40 and get a cheap 800w rated thing than get a 400w rated PSU with a spoiler and spinners so to speak.

Brands are brands but the real reason PSUs fail is because you overload the rails. Cheap PSUs have all the amps in the wrong places but buying high wattage sidesteps that.

The closest to an expensive PSU I've ever had was an OCZ and I've only had one PSU fail on me since I was 13. (20 now)

Nobody's suggesting buying a bling-bling low wattage PSU. In fact the 'sweet spot' in my mind is a ~500W 80 Plus Bronze PSU from numerous manufacturers. These are usually found for $50-60 on Newegg. If you have a need for a 600W PSU, they almost always come on sale around $70. These PSUs have no frills other than some modular connectors, very good efficiency and very good electrical performance. A bargain bin '800W' PSU rarely has good efficiency and pretty much never has good electrical performance. It comes with cost cutting compromises like thinner gauge cabling, bad capacitors, poor hand soldering, inferior topologies, even missing components.

OCZ seems to be for the most part fine now as a PSU manufacturer even though Sirfa and Great Wall don't have as good of a track record as some of the other PSU OEMs. Plus they also own PCP&P, which is using both Seasonic and Super Flower in newer lines.

In the past, OCZ's choice of OEM has been spotty. They've mainly relied on cost-reduced platforms from Sirfa, FSP and maybe a few others.

Everyone will condemn me here but I will state this. If you are low on budget and need a affordable PSU. I would rather spend $40 and get a cheap 800w rated thing than get a 400w rated PSU with a spoiler and spinners so to speak.

Brands are brands but the real reason PSUs fail is because you overload the rails. Cheap PSUs have all the amps in the wrong places but buying high wattage sidesteps that.

But according to the claims made by all the sellers, it's impossible overload PSUs because they contain protection against this, and it seems even the cheapest products really do have the circuitry, only it doesn't work well enough.

You can't bet that a $40 800W PSU will work better than a $40 400W or even as well, and some cheap PSUs can't put out even half their rated power. It's not just a matter of the amp capacities being in the wrong places.

And brands aren't just brands. Transformer size is a rough indicator of power capacity and here's the transformer of a 575W Logisys PSU (yellow), next to the much larger transformer of an Aspire/Topower PSU (blue) rated for just 500W. Guess which of those companies was being more truthful than the other.

I just picked up and 850 watt Thermaltake modular power supply from Best Buy for $100, that's cheap. Last time I bought a supply I paid over twice that for half the capacity...

Get a good one and forget about it lol

Did you buy a TR2 RX? Because you got ripped off if you did. Best Buy literally put it in your pooper. That is basically a $60 PSU at best, and there are plenty of lower wattage options with better electrical performance for way less than $100. Wattage is only a starting point in PSU shopping...you must look at other aspects of electrical performance like voltage regulation and ripple suppression. You have to look at whether they awful capacitors from China or not.

If you bought the newer Thermaltake SMART SP-850, then that's not as bad. The only other PSUs available in-store at Best Buy I would touch are the Corsair GS Series. That said, everything above still applies. 850W is enough for a heavily OC'd high end CPU and two heavily OC'd high end GPUs. If your PC doesn't fit that description, you don't need that much power.

It's model number SP-850M, looks like it has all the goods. I'm sure there are better values out there. But when you're screwing around with the project mentioned here on a day off I'm OK with spending a few extra bucks to move on to the fun.

Also, if you ever reference my pooper again I'll be forced to break your face

Spent $100 on a PSU eight years ago, hasn't failed me across three machines since. It's 500 or 550W, I forget. Despite currently having a heavily overclocked i5 and 8GB of RAM and four drives and two video cards this ancient supply has run like a champ all through this miserable hot summer. Focus on quality more than the wattage capacity, lots of people buy 300-600 watts more than they will ever need, and the wattage ratings are rarely truthy anyway.